The Art of Being Single by E. Bernstein

The Art of Being Single by E. Bernstein

(Link): The Art of Being Single

Excerpts:

March 2019

After Katie Tomaszewski divorced at the age of 28, she felt ashamed to be alone.

So she did what she thought a single person should do: She over-dated, over-worked and over-socialized, inviting friends over for dinner nearly every night because she was afraid of being lonely.

“It was constant socializing and constant distraction,” says Ms. Tomaszewski, now a 36-year-old Pilates instructor in Chicago. “I became desperate and depressed, looking for someone—anyone—to save me from being alone.”

Yes, it can be tough to be single. But a new study published this past December in the Journals of Gerontology offers hope for those who are struggling.

Singles today are more satisfied with their lives than singles in the past, the study found.

Thoughts Regarding ‘Both Purity Culture and Hook-Up Culture Failed Me’ by A. Murrish

Thoughts Regarding ‘Both Purity Culture and Hook-Up Culture Failed Me’ by A. Murrish

First, here is a link to the page I will be discussing:

(Link): Both Purity Culture and Hook-Up Culture Failed Me

I don’t care for this editorial.

For one thing it sort of spiritualizes the status of singleness, which is grating to any adult over the age of 35, who had hoped to marry, but is still single.

Next, the author points to the church as a solution for singles.

She is essentially telling marriage-desiring singles to lose themselves in church, to find belonging in church groups.

The problem with this is that for many never-married adults (and some divorced and widowed) over the age of 30, most churches either ignore adult singles, or they insult adult singles, because they are too preoccupied with promoting marriage and catering to the needs of married couples.

Another Christianity Today Magazine Editorial Expects Single Women To Meet the Needs of Married Women – Christians Never Ask the Reverse

Another Christianity Today Magazine Editorial (2019) Expects Single Women To Meet the Needs of Married Women – Christians Never Ask the Reverse

I am a never-married woman who is over the age of 45, and I am childless. I had wanted to be married but never found the right guy, so I remain single.

I was a very devout Christian for many years, until a few years ago.

I did a blog post about (Link): another editorial on Christianity Today’s site, where a married woman with small children wrote a long piece extolling the virtues of single, childless women:
but only in the context of how she found single, childless women useful to her because they could provide her with free babysitting services that she could not obtain from her biological family, who lived 1,000 miles away.

Here again, in April 2019, is another editorial in the same vein: a piece that extols the wonders and virtues of how single, childless women can or should meet the needs of married women, especially married ones who have children and need free babysitting services and emotional support.

Now, if you’re the sort of single, childless woman who sincerely enjoys babysitting married women’s children, that is fine by me. But I am not one of them.

I’m not opposed to single, childless women caring for, or taking an interest in, other people’s children, if they so desire.

I am opposed to this when this is one of the only options presented to Christian women, however.

Galentine’s Day – Because Nobody Likes Valentine’s Day Anymore

Galentine’s Day – Because Nobody Likes Valentine’s Day Anymore

I started seeing mentions of “Galentine’s” day show up in my Twitter a few days ago.

It has something to do with women friends celebrating their friendship with each other, instead of celebrating Valentine’s Day – or this article below says it’s celebrated on February 13th, the day before Valentine’s.

(Link): What Is Galentine’s Day? Leslie Knope’s Favorite Holiday Is Something We Should All Celebrate

… Basically, it’s like Valentine’s Day, only instead of celebrating the love you have for your significant other, you spend it with your best girlfriends, who are, after all, your soul mates, and therefore deserve a holiday all to themselves, too.

Leslie chooses to observe the day of lady love with brunch (her other true love), but you can kick it back lady-style however you want. Since the episode aired in 2010, it’s become just as big a deal as its Valentine’s Day counterpart. Ovaries before brovaries, you know?

Romeo, The World’s Loneliest Frog, May Be Getting a Girlfriend

Romeo, The World’s Loneliest Frog, May Be Getting a Girlfriend

(Link):  Romeo, The World’s Loneliest Frog, May Be Getting a Girlfriend

Excerpts:

by Lynn Franco
Jan 2019

He’s spent 10 years alone. Now Romeo, the world’s loneliest frog, may have finally found a Juliet that can save his species

Scientists have found a potential mate for Romeo, the Sehuencas water frog who’s been alone and single for the last 10 years. Housed in a museum in Bolivia, Romeo was considered possibly the last living water frog of his kind.

The big-eyed amphibian won hearts worldwide last year after conservationists created a playful Match .com profile for him.

Church Is a Family, Not an Event by K. Kandiah

Church Is a Family, Not an Event by K. Kandiah

This editorial by Kandiah makes many of the same points I have been making on this blog the last several years.

Church is not just about spreading the Gospel (as so many Christians incorrectly assume), but God designed the church to also serve as a community, another family, where widowed, single, and divorced adults could get their needs for companionship met.

But most churches today do not want to engage in that role; all the church-goers want to go home to their homes in the suburbs with their biological families and just hang out with their families.

Many church-going Christians don’t care to invite over the divorcee’ or the widower or the never married woman and include any of those people in their lives.

(Link): Church Is a Family, Not an Event by K. Kandiah

Excerpts:

The Bible refers to fellow Christians as “brothers and sisters,” but how often do we treat them as family?

…More Than an Event
I have met many pastors and church members who can tell similar stories. As I visit many churches that are embracing people in desperate need of family, my eyes are continually being opened not only to what family truly can be but to what church as family truly can be.

This shift in perception of what church is, and what church is for, has huge implications, not just for our own personal spiritual development but for our understanding of mission, evangelism, worship, justice, hospitality, and discipleship.

Love Couldn’t Save Me From Loneliness By M. Puniewska

Love Couldn’t Save Me From Loneliness By M. Puniewska

Yes, it is possible to be in a relationship – dating or married to a man – yet feel all alone. Some men cannot or will not fulfill a woman’s emotional needs, or, some men prefer watching football to spending time with their wives, which leaves their wives feeling all alone.

This certainly happened to me. I was in a serious relationship with a man, we were engaged for the last few years of the relationship, and he was selfish, self-absorbed, didn’t care to meet my emotional (or other) needs, so I recall sitting in the same room with him yet still feeling as though I was all alone.

I also agree with the view of this author that there is a “loneliness shaming” that goes on in American society; if you admit to being or feeling lonely, you will be shamed for it, as though it’s unacceptable to admit to being lonely.

(Link): Love Couldn’t Save Me From Loneliness By M. Puniewska

[The author explains to a friend of hers over lunch that she has been feeling lonely]

…After listening carefully and making lots of affirming nods, she acknowledged how loneliness could be hard. However, she ultimately settled on something else. “But you have your boyfriend,” she said, matter-of-factly but not maliciously. “That’s something, right?”

Yes, it was something, and it was something that was going really well. But I didn’t feel like this was about him.

This was about those other empty holes in my life, left by friends I had lost touch with or family who didn’t call. I didn’t think he could fill them — and I wouldn’t expect him to.

What Loneliness Does to the Human Body by Ashley Fetters

What Loneliness Does to the Human Body by Ashley Fetters

(Link): What Loneliness Does to the Human Body By Ashley Fetters

Excerpts:

January 2018

…When researchers study loneliness, they tend to define it as “the perceived discrepancy between one’s desired level of social connection and their actual level of social connection,” says Brigham Young University psychology and neuroscience professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad.

Some people who are socially isolated don’t necessarily feel lonely, and some people who are lonely are surrounded by people who make them feel more alienated, not less.

But 9 million lonely people probably aren’t just a damper on the national morale; they’re likely to be a strain on national productivity and health-care systems, too.

The bodies of lonely people are markedly different from the bodies of non-lonely people.

Japan’s Prisons Are a Haven for Elderly Women (Many of Whom Are Married Yet Very Lonely)

Japan’s Prisons Are a Haven for Elderly Women (Many of Whome Are Married Yet Very Lonely)

We have a problem with this in the U.S.A. as well (i.e, adults feeling lonely, including senior citizens), but American churches are fixated on “The Nuclear Family,” rather than doing what the Bible tells them to do: cater to the out-cast and ignored: the widows, the orphans, never-married adults who live alone, and all the rest of those who do NOT fit the “Married with Kids at Home” demographic.

But notice that some of the women described in this article are in fact married – some even have adult children.

So, does marriage make people more godly, and responsible, as American Christians claim? No. Marriage does not make anyone immune from being sinful and committing crimes.

Does being married or having children mean you’re going to have company and never feel lonely all the days of your life? No, because the married mothers in this article say they feel neglected, ignored, and misunderstood, even by their own husbands and children.

(Link): Japan’s Prisons Are a Haven for Elderly Women

Excerpts:

Dec 2018

Lonely seniors are shoplifting in search of the community and stability of jail.
By Shiho Fukada

Every aging society faces distinct challenges. But Japan, with the world’s oldest population (27.3 percent of its citizens are 65 or older, almost twice the share in the U.S.), has been dealing with one it didn’t foresee: senior crime.

Complaints and arrests involving elderly people, and women in particular, are taking place at rates above those of any other demographic group. Almost 1 in 5 women in Japanese prisons is a senior.

Their crimes are usually minor — 9 in 10 senior women who’ve been convicted were found guilty of shoplifting.

 Why have so many otherwise law-abiding elderly women resorted to petty theft? Caring for Japanese seniors once fell to families and communities, but that’s changing. From 1980 to 2015, the number of seniors living alone increased more than sixfold, to almost 6 million.

And a 2017 survey by Tokyo’s government found that more than half of seniors caught shoplifting live alone; 40 percent either don’t have family or rarely speak with relatives.

Divorced 50-Something Lady Named Andy Says Her Ex Husband Gave Her an STD

Divorced 50-Something Lady Named Andy Says Her Ex Husband Gave Her an STD

On the November 6, 2018 episode of “The 700 Club” the Christian show host received a letter from a 54 year old woman named “Andy.”

I do not as of yet see this letter uploaded on (Link): the 700 Club You Tube account,  (it would probably be uploaded under the “Your Questions, Honest Answers” section – edit: the just uploaded the ENTIRE day’s episode, the letter comes towards the end of the show/video), and I saw this letter only one time, so I am having to go on memory here.

(Whoever runs the 700 Club You Tube account has dropped the ball over the past year: they used to promptly upload each and every episode and the “Answers to Questions” segments every day within an hour after airing on TV, but they’ve not been doing that lately I have noticed. Anyway.)

From what I can recall, this Andy lady (who is apparently a Christian) said she was married to her husband for about twenty years.

Andy said at one stage of their marriage that her husband had an affair with another woman, which resulted in the husband contracting a very bad STD (sexually transmitted disease), and he passed it on to her.

This played a role in why she divorced her husband. She remains single now.

Never Married Adult Man Named Stephen Asks Christian Host Why God Has Not Answered His 3-Decades Long Prayers to Send Him A Wife

Never-Married Adult Man Named Stephen Asks Christian Host Why God Has Not Answered His 3-Decades Long Prayers To Send Him A Wife

On the November 2, 2018 episode of “The 700 Club,” some guy named Stephen wrote in with a question about singleness and marriage, and host Gordon Robertson answered it.

You can find the question on You Tube (Link) here, and that part of the show is in the last 5 – 10 minutes of the show. You can also watch that same episode on (Link): The 700 Club web site.

I will discuss the letter from Stephen more below.

First, I wanted to say…
Within the past 2 – 3 weeks, 700 Club has been running more than their usual number of questions from viewers about singleness and asking why hasn’t God sent them a spouse, such as this one:

(Link): James the 40 Something Year Old Single Guy Asks Why Don’t Churches Help Single Adults Get Married

I have watched this 700 Club show daily since around 2005, and sporadically prior to that, for years (my mother used to watch this show when I was a kid in the 1970s, so I’ve seen plenty of it).

Well, in most episodes, 700 Club rarely, rarely addresses adult singleness. They mostly feature married couples who are having affairs or financial problems.

They rarely address singleness, unless they have a 30- or 40 -something female co-host who is single.

60 Year Old, Never- Married Woman Asks Christian TV Host Pat Robertson If Some Are Just Not Meant to Marry

60 Year Old, Never- Married Woman Asks Christian TV Host Pat Robertson If Some Are Just Not Meant to Marry

Below, in this post, is a video on You Tube, via ‘700 Club,’ uploaded on October 25, 2018, in which a 60 year old woman says she “never found a godly man to marry” and her church never has any men her age there.

She asks Robertson if some people are just never meant to marry.

As I’ve been saying on this blog for ages now, you cannot count on God, prayer, churches or Christians to fix you up with a spouse, because they won’t (churches will even shame and scold you for asking).

The woman says she’s never found a “godly” man to marry – I think that is Christian code-speak for “I haven’t found a Christian man to marry.” This woman has probably been brain-washed into accepting (Link): the “Equally Yoked” teaching.

Single ladies, if you are Christian and want marriage, the numbers are stacked against you, as I’ve explained in numerous posts before. You need to get away from this “I must marry a  Christian and only a Christian” belief, or you will end up in your 40s, never married like me, or like this 60 year old woman.

It’s better to find a kind-hearted, loving Non-Christian man to marry than end up at 60 never having been married because you could not find a compatible Christian man – there are no single Christian men in churches for you to meet and marry who are over age 30 and under age 80. They don’t attend church.

James the Single 40-Something Guy Asks The 700 Club’s Pat Robertson Why Churches Don’t Help Singles Get Married

James the Single 40-Something Guy Asks 700 Club’s Pat Robertson Why Churches Don’t Help Singles

On an October 31, 2018 airing of television program “700 Club,” host Pat Robertson responded to a question from a 48 year old guy named James who says he is single and wants to know why churches don’t do anything to help single adults get married, because (he seemed to imply), they sure as heck are not helping him.

As of today, I do not see the October 31, 2018 “Questions” section of the show on 700 Club’s You Tube channel.

As of this writing, though, you can view the “Questions” portion (which comes during the last ten minutes of the show) on the full episode (Link): here on You Tube.

You might also be able to view the Questions segment (in the full length show) on the (Link): 700 Club site here.

The gist of James’ letter was – he says he’s 48 years old, single (he did not specify if he is divorced, widowed, or never-married), the Bible says it’s better to marry than burn in lust, but what if there are no options (like in his case – I think he meant there are no single women in his life or church), and the church isn’t doing anything to help a Christian single get married?

The Sexless Life When Sex Is God by D. French

The Sexless Life When Sex Is God by D. French

(The link to the editorial by D. French is farther below)

Overall, it’s a good essay, though I can’t say as though I totally agree with this author’s suggestion, which involves teaching people to put faith in God, or a god, because, he believes, one issue with incel men is that they have turned sex into a deity.

And that may well be true – perhaps incels have turned sex into a deity, but I’m not sure asking them to turn to God will necessarily fix this issue.

Why? Because more and more Americans are post-Christian, or, if they still believe in God, they now regard themselves as “nones” or “dones” and have been leaving churches in droves.  There is little to no respect by such people for what churches or pastors are saying or preaching.

Not only that, but a lot of Christians, as I have blogged about repeatedly on this site, have also turned sex into a deity themselves.

I have many examples on my blogs of pastors who mock and disparage singleness, celibacy, and adult virginity, who go on and on in their sermons about how great marriage is and how great sex is.

One of a few solutions I put forth is this: since our (secular) culture esteems choice so highly, remind the third-wave feminists and the sexist bro-dudes who worship sex, that if they expect everyone to respect their choice to have, or to want, pre-marital sex, that they need to return that favor and respect those, who by choice or circumstance, are virgins into adulthood, or who practice celibacy.

Some feminists yell, scream, and complain about “slut shaming,” but some of them (and the wider culture) likes to practice Celibate Shaming and Virgin Shaming, which I’ve blogged about many times before (with some examples).

Lonely Woman Wonders How to Make Friends (letter to Ask Amy)

Lonely Woman Wonders How to Make Friends (letter to Ask Amy)

(Link):  Lonely Woman Wonders How to Make Friends (letter to Ask Amy)

Dear Amy:

I am a 61-year-old woman, divorced for years. I have an adult daughter, and a small immediate family.

Years ago, I had lots of friends. Some moved, some got married, a lot of them are very involved with their large families, etc.

Here I am — alone. I am a very active, friendly and interesting person. I have volunteered, gone to church, participated in meet-ups, taken classes, etc.

Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About, by B. Smith

Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About, by B. Smith

This article discusses how sometimes the single life can be lonely. The author is writing from a secular perspective.

I’ve said on this blog in years past that if Christians did their job properly, Christian singles would have their companionship needs met by the church, but Christians are too focused on meeting the needs of Married Couples and droning on about the importance of The Nuclear Family to give any thought to adults who remain single past the age of 25 or 30.

If Christians were doing their jobs properly, they’d be helping those singles who want marriage to get married – by hosting social events geared towards single adults, by asking their single friends if they could fix them up on dates.

Christians could also provide platonic companionship by inviting single adults over for dinner or out to the movies, but married couples usually don’t want single adults in the mix, sometimes because they don’t like “odd numbers” around the dinner table and the paranoia of Christians who believe in the moronic “Billy Graham Rule.”

Christian singles are left to their own devices as to how to seek out companionship. Most churches simply do not care to meet the needs of singles, but will tell them the church is not for them,  that the church does not exist to help single adults get their needs met.

Originally spotted this on Melanie Notkin’s Twitter:

(Link): Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About

Excerpts:

We often celebrate the power and pleasures of the single life, but skim over one of its harshest realities: loneliness

….In 1981, 26 percent of Canadians aged 25 to 29 were unmarried. In 2016 (the last yearcensus numbers were gathered), that number skyrocketed to 57 percent. During that time, the percentage of unmarried women in their early 30s jumped from 10 to 34 percent.

Dear Abby: I Gave Up Dating, and 30 Years Later, I’m Lonely

Dear Abby: I Gave Up Dating, and 30 Years Later, I’m Lonely

This post has been edited to add even more reader comments from other sites that published this Abby letter. Virtually nobody is sympathetic with this guy.

---

I was genuinely feeling empathy and sympathy for this dude, right up until this phrase in his letter to Dear Abby:

“I’m not attracted to women my age, and I don’t see younger women being attracted to an overweight old guy…”

Die alone, ageist rat bastard!

You’re in your 70s, by your own admission, you’re dumpy- or tubby- looking and don’t have a great income, but you pine after some 20, 30, or 40 or 50 year old hottie? (And I bet this sexist pig jerk expects any chick he dates to not only be younger but very thin, too.)

Oh get bent, ten times over!

Dating in Your 40s (Advice Columnist M. Goldstein)

Dating in Your 40s (Advice Columnist M. Goldstein)

(Link): Dating in Your 40s (Advice Columnist M. Goldstein)

Q. Where is a single woman in her 40s supposed to look for love?

Though I had some decent luck in my 20s, it doesn’t seem that online dating is a viable option when you are midlife and not interested in hookups, and I tend to see the same people on all the different sites.

Once upon a time it was fresh and attracted a lot of different people, but it seems that online dating has run its course as a legitimate way to meet people, based on my experiences.

What the Single in Your Pew Needs from You by G. Dalfonzo

What the Single in Your Pew Needs from You by G. Dalfonzo

Good on her for writing this, but I can tell you that 99.9% of American churches will ignore this advice because they don’t care about singles: they prefer to worship The Nuclear Families.

(Link): What the Single in Your Pew Needs from You

Excerpts:

Singles are on the rise. Here’s what forward-looking churches need to know.

According to recent Pew data, the (Link): number of married Americans is at its lowest point since at least 1920. In 2015, only half of Americans ages 18 and over were married, (Link): compared with 72 percent in 1960.

Put another way: Singles are on the rise and beginning to outnumber marrieds. The church, however, doesn’t reflect those numbers.

According to a (Link): recent Barna study, while more than half of Americans (54%) between the ages of 18 and 49 are single, only 23 percent of active churchgoers are single. “Your church should be filling up at least half of your pews with single people,” (Link): writes Joyce Chiu for Barna Trends. “So what will get them there?”

…..So how can your local church create a welcoming space for singles?

Recognize that single people’s needs may look different from yours.
When a single person talks about feeling lonely, it’s common for a married person to counter that he or she often feels lonely, too. That’s not surprising. Studies show that up to half of us experience loneliness “at least some of the time.”

Is It Just Me, Or Is Making Friends in Middle Age Hard for Everyone? (Letter to Ask Amy)

Is It Just Me, Or Is Making Friends in Middle Age Hard for Everyone? (Letter to Ask Amy)

I’ve had the same difficulty, so lady, it’s NOT just you.

(Link):  Is It Just Me, Or Is Making Friends in Middle Age Hard for Everyone? (Letter to Ask Amy)

June 2017

DEAR AMY:

I am a 50-year-old self-employed professional, and I have no friends. I know lots of people and have plenty of acquaintances.

I moved back to the Midwest about five years ago after getting divorced. I remarried recently and my husband is my best and pretty much my only friend. We met online.

I know I need more than this, but I have not been able to connect to anyone socially here for much more than an occasional cup of coffee.